Conventional propel/repel lipstick dispensers having an outer helical cam track sleeve and a longitudinal track innerbody rotatable inside the cam sleeve to axially propel and retract an elevator cup with a lug that tracks in the cam and longitudinal tracks are known and are disclosed, for example, in Hultgren, U.S. Pat. No. 3,298,509. The disadvantage of such conventional dispensers are only operable when the cam sleeve has a circular cross-section. Thus the innerbody, elevator cup, and the cosmetic pomade carried in the elevator cup both must have a circular cross-section.
Shaped pomades have been known, and have heretofore been usable only in a center screw type dispenser such as shown in Bau, U.S. Pat. No. 3,256,980. The disadvantage of such designs is that the dispenser must be sufficiently long to enclose the entire length of both the center screw mechanism and the lipstick pomade when the lipstick is retracted. Thus, to contain the same length of shaped pomade as in a circular pomade in a cam sleeve type dispenser, the dispenser of the center screw type would be about twice as long as a cam sleeve type dispenser. Consequently, a compact dispenser is not feasible without a reduction in pomade quantity from a conventional lipstick pomade. It is to be appreciated that consumers do not appreciate such a reduction of product size, and accordingly, a shaped pomade in a compact dispenser has not been commercially feasible.